"In-in my room, thank you," he managed. It was a full minute after Robbie left before he could peel himself from the side of the tavern. His head was buzzing as he entered the tavern, but not so much that he couldn't see the Delbarton bucks at their usual table and Uncle Radnor and Uncle Ferrell by the fire, all drinking whiskey. He turned on Uncle Harvey, pointing furiously at their cups.

"I thought I told you to get rid of that swill!"

"Well, I am," Uncle Harvey grinned broadly, "jest as fast as they can drink it up. 'Twixt them an' yer boys, it'll be gone by mornin', son."

Garner's eyes closed and he shuddered visibly. Son. Not even his own father ever called him son! He turned and tromped up the stairs, his insides strangely liquid and draining toward his boots. What was happening to him?!

Pausing in the dim upper hallway, he struggled to collect himself and after a deep, restoring breath, he reached for the door latch and froze. It was open, freed! He trembled for one agonizing minute as the pressure built inside him, then lurched through the unlocked door, knowing she'd be gone.

Whitney startled and darted up from her chair as he came hurtling through the door. He stopped, just inside, his booted legs spread, his chest heaving. Surprise registered on his face when he saw her, and after a long moment, he eased and made quite a business of straightening his coat front. His ears grew red and he lifted his square chin to an arrogant angle as he surveyed the room, then her.

I must look a mess, was her very first thought. Eyes red, nose swollen. Lord, crying was all she'd managed to do that afternoon. She'd been interrupted twice; once by a fellow who described himself as the major's "aide," Benson, and a second time by Robbie Dedham, who came to bring a new candle and extra blankets. The door latch had been jammed, Benson explained, scratching his head over how it came to be so. Then, just minutes ago,Robbie and Benson had both returned with a tray of food, a small pot of coffee, and word that the major had just released Charlie Dunbar. And Whitney's afternoon-long struggle to gain control of her womanly feelings went for naught. She had put her face in her hands and sobbed again.

And now here he was, looking her over like a mare on the block. She moved woodenly, keeping him in sight as he closed the door and came forward. She stiffened and had to stay the urge to run a hand up over her hair.

"You let Charlie go," she declared softly, losing her battle to avoid his eyes. They were so blue and clear just now, in the candlelight.

"How did you hear-"

"Robbie and that fellow Benson told me."

That explained the mystery of the unlocked door, though not the mystery of her continuing presence in his room. He nodded and waved her to a seat beside the tray on the bed as he settled on the other side of it.

"N-no, thank you. I'm not hungry." She lapped her arms around her waist in a gesture that divulged an unexpected bit of insecurity in her.

"You didn't have dinner," he admonished, feeling strangely responsible and parental, and very uncomfortable with such feelings. "I'll not be held responsible for your wasting away, wench. Sit." When she didn't obey, he declared with greater force, "You have to eat, wench."

"Whitney," she whispered, feeling strangely hollow. "My name is Whitney."

A giant hand closed around his throat, forbidding a single word. He nodded and waved to the bed across the tray from him and after a moment she settled there. Neither moved or spoke for a time as each confronted the problem of their unsought union. It was done. And where did they go from here?

"You took care of me while I was... ill," he declared, trying desperately not to look at her reddened eyes and sweetly miserable face.

"In sickness and in health,' I said." She couldn't look at him either. "And a Daniels never goes back on his word."

Garner's chest grew crowded and his face darkened. He'd never felt less like eating in his life... or more hungry.

It was a somber meal and, despite the miraculous improvement in Dedham's cuisine, it was utterly tasteless as well. Afterward, Whitney made to carry the tray downstairs and he prevented her, saying that was Benson's task. Then he surprised her by asking if she would like to go down to the tavern's warmth for a while. She nodded and he took her by the wrist and led her out the door. In the darkened hallway she raised her hand between them, staring at the lean fingers wrapped possessively around her wrist.

"I won't run from you, Major. A Daniels never runs from anything." She turned her face up to his with a searching look.

He nodded and released her, feeling oddly hollow inside again.

In the tavern, she managed to return the Delbartons' greetings and settled by Uncle Ferrel and Uncle Radnor by the hearth. She watched strapping Mike Delbarton emerge from a huddle of heads over their table of cards and rise to snare the major's attention.

"How 'bout sittin' a hand or two with us, Majur?" he invited genially.

Whitney's head snapped up in time to catch Garner's unnerved look. He stumbled verbally, reddened, and declined with a choked, "Some other time, perhaps."

Mike's grin broadened as he sank back onto his stool and there were muffled, but still audible comments about a fellow's first week of wedded life taking a lot out of him. And they turned with sly, buckish grins to glance at Whitney, whose face now matched the wheezing red coals in the hearth beside her.

She waited long enough to be sure they wouldn't connect her departure with their lusty remarks and headed for the stairs. Her heart began to thud when Garner rose to escort her and by the time they reached the darkened top of the stairs her blood was roaring in her ears.

Once inside his room, Garner lit the single candle again and stood awkwardly, testing the wary truce between them.

"I should have sent for your things." He turned to his leather kit and pulled a clean shirt from it, thrusting it into her hands. "Perhaps you'll find that useful. Sleep well... Whitney." He fled, carrying with him the look of relief on her face.

Benson startled her with a knock, some minutes later. She was still standing there, clutching his soft, gentlemanly shirt to her, looking at the door. The pleasant-faced fellow had brought a tin box of live coals and a pitcher of fresh water and insisted on warming the bed himself, saying it was his duty. Something about 'gentlemun's gentlemun,' then he bobbed a bit of a bow that left Whitney speechless, and withdrew.

Recovering, she undressed quickly, and doused the candle. She slipped into Garner Townsend's shirt and into his warmed bed, half-wishing it were into his arms instead, and irritated at her own pure wantonness. As she lay in the drowsy warmth she thought about his subdued courtesy after supper, and of his "servant," which was surely what Benson was, and about the fact that he wouldn't let her carry their supper tray downstairs. She had thought it was because he didn't trust her, but now wondered if there might be another, more gentlemanly reason.

For the first time, she wondered what his other life, in Boston, was like. He was wealthy, undoubtedly. Real gold buttons and such. Probably had servants. And family? Did he have family? She knew all kinds of things about him, his routine of hygiene and his culinary habits, his stubborn eastern loyalty, and his upright and uncompromising character. She knew how to make him lose his temper and how to make him moan with pleasure. But the really important things about him, the workings of his inner self-his ambitions, his fears, his longings, his past-were very much a mystery to her. Then the most nagging unknowns of all surfaced in her mind. What did her marriage mean to the future of Rapture's people? And what was a very proper Boston gentleman like him going to do with a wife like her?

Half of her questions were answered the next morning when she learned Garner had led out another of his patrols. When he returned, he nodded, took a bite to eat, and went straight to his bed. Whitney didn't see him again until late afternoon. She spent a very long morning seeing well-meaning well-wishers in Dedham's tavern. Every woman in Rapture brought her something to set up housekeeping with and a bit of marital advice... both of which properly mortified her. Housekeeping? Her?!!

Late morning, Aunt Kate appeared in the tavern with a small leather satchel filled with her clothes, and a worried expression. They hugged, and Kate cried a bit, and Whitney reassured her. When Whitney asked about her pa, Kate was tellingly silent, except to reveal that Charlie Dunbar had come to see Black and that they'd celebrated his freedom with half a jug of Black's best whiskey. Pressed further, Kate expressed her fears about Black's state of mind, about his angry vow to continue his distilling operations, "come hell or high water." Whitney's first instinct was to go to him, to talk him into laying low until the soldiers left. But Kate was adamant; the sight of her would only agitate him further. Whitney watched Kate's departure with a horrible sinking inside.

She retreated to his room, midafternoon, seeking a bit of privacy and some space to think. But as she entered, she came face to face with him, bootless, shirtless, shaving. He had whirled and coiled by reflex at the sound of her entry. But at the sight of her he straightened, seeming to grow before her eyes. And for a long, spellbinding minute, all she could see was the muscular symmetry of his wide chest and the lacy pattern of black hair over that tight, mounded flesh. The air between them charged quickly and both turned away with flushed faces and constricting throats.

Later that afternoon, he found her carrying a bucket of water from the creek for Louise Dedham and admonished her to leave such work for Benson and the Dedhams. When he made to take the bucket from her, she stubbornly thrust it out of his reach and he found himself pressing full against her. His fingers closed over hers and a spark of excitement flashed between them as he brushed against her breasts, her shoulders, her skirts. She relinquished the bucket, but he didn't move. He stood looking down at her tantalizing lips, refusing to separate himself from her. It was only Louise Dedham's unwitting intrusion that broke them apart.

By the time he escorted her to their room that night, Whitney was alive with tension, vibrating with a sensory hunger she could not satisfy with a mere glimpse of his long, muscular legs. Garner was no better off. All evening, he had observed each seductive bend of her waist and sway of her skirts in an agony of awareness, craving the delights they concealed. His entire consciousness had narrowed to one driving reality; she was his. His woman. His wife. The knowledge had worked on his newly freed passions all afternoon. It was done; they were legally bound, entitled. The raptures that turned him inside out were his.

"Aunt Kate brought me some things today," she turned to him in the candlelight and found his eyes glowing golden with the reflection of it. Her whole body tightened and she simply held out to him the shirt he'd lent her the night before. When he didn't move to take it from her, she felt her heart beating faster and lowered the garment. "Of course, I'll be obliged to wash it first."

He reached for it belatedly, but her fingers now refused to surrender it. As he pulled determinedly, her arms came with it, then the rest of her. Closer... closer...

"I have other shirts, Whitney. Lots of other shirts." When she was close enough, he transferred his hands to her waist, mastering her stiff resistance with gentle caressing motions.

"F-four," she let the shirt fall to the floor between them, "you have four shirts."

"Huh uh." He shook his head gently as he pulled her eyes into his and continued that relentless conquering of the space between them. "Forty. At least forty."

"Forty shirts?" She hardly heard what she was saying for the thudding of her own heart. "But you can only wear... one at a time."

"True," he tightened around her so that her breasts crushed softly against his chest. A trill raced along his nerves and plunged into his loins. "Perhaps I should have some help... wearing them." His mouth lowered to her raised, parted lips. "Help me, Whitney."

Chapter Thirteen.

His desire-roughened voice rasped over her skin, setting her entire body aflame with the need to answer. Her arms came up to circle him and she raised onto her toes to open to his kiss. He tantalized her lips, nibbling and licking them, then delving into the spicy sweetness of her satiny mouth, stroking, invading her. She met his thrusting tongue with a woman's hunger, holding it, savoring it, sucking it in gentle imitation of a larger fulfillment yet to come.

Shocked heat struck that spark, and desire exploded inside him. He groaned and clasped her to him savagely as though he could somehow take her inside him, imprison her there. His hands flew over her waist and back, her shoulders and her tawny hair, wanting to cover her all at once. The eager rise of her response sent him spiralling beyond the reach of reason-careening toward paradise again.

Their potent, molten kisses drew heat and energy from all over their bodies, leaving them trembling. With burning faces and glistening eyes, they parted by some mutual sense and sent clumsy fingers to buttons and lacings. He ripped his coat and shirt from his shoulders, then peeled her skirt and petticoat from her, pushing them down into a heap about her ankles. Her shirt came off next and he replaced it with his, draping it about her shoulders, then stroking and caressing her hard-tipped breasts through its soft linen.

"It feels so much better on you," he groaned softly, sliding into a mischievous grin that dazzled her. She'd never imagined the natural hauteur of his aristocratic features could melt into such a rougish and charming expression.

He lifted her into his arms and carried her to the bed. She was clad only in his shirt and her boots, and shortly he was removing the boots, running his hands over her trim ankles and slender feet, then up her shapely, muscular calves. His touch polished her skin, made it glow warmly as he explored her both with his hands and his eyes. Every bit of girlish shock, every vestige of maidenly reserve was drowned in the smooth, lavalike flow of sensation engulfing her.

"I've watched your legs, wench... ached to touch them," he rasped softly, raising one of her knees and covering it with nipping kisses. "So strong and sleek, no wonder you run like a thoroughbred." His fingers drifted down the inside of her upraised thigh and she quivered and raised her other leg to clamp them together, trapping his hand between them.

"Want to inspect my teeth too, Major?" she purred, fighting the urge to wriggle against his hand, to let it slide to the burning flesh between her thighs.

"No," he laughed raggedly, bending closer as he raised his other hand, which still bore fading red marks from her bite. "I've had ample proof your teeth are sound. I'm about to set hands to you again, wench." His voice dropped, vibrating her extremities as he lowered his head and poured his breath over her mouth.

"Are you going to bite me again?" he asked.

"Do you want me to?"

She raised her chin to bring their mouths together and took his succulent bottom lip between her teeth, raking it gently.

He erupted, sinking both arms beneath her and shuddering at the whiskey-hot burn of her kisses. And in that moment he lost himself completely in the marvel of her bright, passionate being. She was pure element; like the vaporous lightning that rose in the caldron of a Scotch-Irish still, like the roaring flame that separated rare liquor from its base beginnings, like the cool, dark earth that patiently yielded the grain that was both source and substance for the brew. She was passion and wonder and beginning; in her body were all the secrets of creation, the mystery and meaning of life itself, hidden and awaiting him, beckoning.

"I thought I must have dreamt that first time, it was so good..." he whispered hoarsely against the base of her throat, drifting on a downward course. "God-how I've wanted you, Whitney, remembered the feel of you." His mouth reached her taut nipple and fastened on it as his fingers kneaded the cool silky mound around it.

She felt him slide between her thighs, covering her, invading her, blurring everything but the splendor of his driving strength. She chilled and burned in the cool air, giving herself over to him, wanting whatever he would do to her. His lips traversed the valley between peaks, and lavished the same irresistible attention on her other nipple, before continuing downward. The brazen fire of his mouth on her belly set her wriggling, and he braced and cupped her sweet buttocks in his hands and nuzzled the gingery curls at the base of her belly. A moan escaped her as she watched him, crouched over her like a great dark cat set to spring and devour her.

"Love me," she breathed, the longings of her heart, mind, and body all compressed into that soft whisper. "Fill me... again."

His boots landed somewhere across the room and his breeches followed them into oblivion. He sank into her arms and her kiss, engulfing her in a steamy vapor of sensation that seeped into her blood. And soon his hardened shaft began to condense that feeling into the liquid heat of her womanflesh. He rubbed and tantalized her sensitive flesh, whispering her name over and over.

She arched and gasped and ran her hands over his back, then shyly clasped his buttocks as he had done hers. He groaned and his body flexed to invade the creamy heat of her with a series of deepening thrusts.

"Ohhh, Major-"

"Garner-" he corrected, stirring swirls of sensation in her hardened nipples with his tongue. He rested deep inside her, touching all of her at once, everything there was. "Is this what you wanted?"

"Yes, ohhh, yes-s-s..." She sucked air through her teeth in a rapturous hiss. The boundaries of her body seemed to have melted, merging her response with his. She met the sinuous commands of his movement eagerly, arching her hips, seeking more of him. And with her deepening response, his smooth, rhythmic motion strengthened, caressing her inside and out, bringing them together harder, faster. Each stroke took them higher, on rising, heated currents that rushed toward paradise.

She burned for completion, for the release of her tortured senses. And suddenly his motions slowed, became powerful exaggerations of loving that flung her through that last unseen threshold like a bright glittering wave crashing onto pleasure's vast shores. The fragile barrier of being burst around her and within her, shattering her senses like precious crystal, searing her nerves into wide open streams of perception.

The storm of her release broke around him, sweeping him into its center, plunging him into that same breaking tide of release and fulfillment. She heard his moans coming from her own lips, felt his convulsive shudders as though they began inside her. And they were joined irrevocably in an intimacy ordained to conquer and rule the stubborn heads and hearts of mankind.

"Garner-" she wetted her tender lips and managed a deep, shuddering breath some time later. They lay much as they had loved, legs entwined, arms encircling, sinking into the soft comfort of lovesleep.

"Ummmm?" His dark head nuzzled the dewy skin of her shoulder lazily. His long-lashed eyes were lidded with deep satisfaction.

"I'm sorry I bit you."

"I must be drunk with you, my hot little Whiskey. I didn't feel a thing."

"I mean... yesterday."

He rumbled indulgently and lay his head back, closing his eyes. "Oh, I intend to make you pay for that... someday..."

When she raised her head to look, he was grinning like a devil.

The pounding at the door shook the darkened room in the middle of the night like peals of summer thunder. Garner sprang bolt upright, his heart pounding furiously, his eyes dry and burning with alarm. The placid darkness of his room stayed him a half-second, then he bounded from the bed, his senses jolted to full capacity and his mind scrambling to make sense of their jumbled messages.

"M-j-rr!"

Brooks's frantic call righted in Garner's brain and he stopped, running his hands back through his hair then shaking his head to clear it. The cold air made him suck in his breath as he cast about for his breeches.

"Coming!" he yelled, finding his voice sleep-rusted, and growling to clear it. "What is it, Brooks?! This had better be damned important-" And in the instant it took him to find and pull on his breeches, he realized it was important. Otherwise, stoic Brooks wouldn't be assaulting his door in the middle of the night.

"It's happening-tonight-now!" Brooks lurched forward, nearly bowling Garner over the minute the door opened. In the lantern light, the lieutenant's face was beet-red and damp, and he panted wildly. "They're moving the whiskey out-now- right now! Kingery spotted them while we were on patrol-out by the sandstone cliffs-in the south valley! There's barrels and barrels of the stuff!"

Garner quivered a moment as the news sank in, then erupted into action, snatching the lantern from Brooks's hand and gathering his boots and coat from the floor. "How many?!"

"Half a dozen or more." He frowned and lowered his eyes to add, "Charlie Dunbar's with them."

"Dammit! Rouse the rest of the men! Have them on their feet and marching in three minutes-I'll be there in two!"

"Yes, sir!"

Brooks tore out of the door and down the stairs as Garner whirled, searching for his shirt. He spotted it on the floor by the bed and sprang for it, coming up with it straight into Whitney's bewildered stare. He froze momentarily and felt himself coiling inside.

"Wha-what's happened? What's wrong?" She clutched the quilts against her bare breasts. She blinked, trying to make sense of the banging and shouting, and of the strange look on his face.

"The whiskey-they're moving it out." As he said it, his jaws began to harden and his grip tightened on the soft linen in his hand. He rose slowly, watching a spark of recognition strike her eyes, and the way she quickly veiled it with her lashes. "I have to go-" He backed a step and shrugged into his shirt, neglecting the pearl fastenings.

"The whiskey? You mean... tonight? They're..." Full realization dawned as she watched him pull on his boots. Her heart lurched and began to pound frantically. "And you're going after them... now?" The full horror of it condensed in her mind and rained through her like hailstones, stripping the middle of her bare. She struggled to the edge of the bed, taking the quilt with her. "Garner-you can't-"

He froze, his coat half on. His face was a hard bronze mask, but it wasn't enough to protect the vulnerable parts of him from the sight of her. There she stood, wrapped in that same damned quilt, tousled from his loving, eyes like luminous green sapphires, lips trembling. Everything in him shrank from the lush reality of her, recoiling, contracting around a long-festering wound in him that she had reopened once again. A second time... the thought raked him like steel claws. He'd taken her to his bed again and for the second time, had risen from her loving into pure turmoil. And disaster hadn't even waited for daylight this time!

"Can't?" His gray eyes narrowed and he braced, feeling his belly tighten for the coming blow. "Can't what?"

"It's my pa," she choked, taking a step toward him and stopping.

"Undoubtedly," he managed through clenched jaws.

"But... we... after..." she clutched the quilt to her desperately, acutely aware of her nakedness. She dragged her eyes from his in shame and rising despair. He'd boldly declared his intention to bring Black Daniels to "federal" justice, tossing it at Black's feet like a gauntlet, knowing a man like her pa would have to take it up. And she had watched it. She'd known a confrontation was inevitable, and still she'd gone to his bed. What could she say? Were there any words in the world that could dissuade him from the duty he held above all else?

"Did you know?" he demanded with a tight desperation that changed abruptly into deep, humiliated anger as he answered himself. "God. Of course you knew. It was all a part of the plan, wasn't it?" The accusation flailed him as viciously as it did her. He quivered, suspended between pain and rage, scarcely able to believe the unthinkable pain he'd walked into with his eyes wide open. Again. It had happened again, only the pain was worse, much worse.

"No, Garner, I didn't- Please-"

"You kept me 'entertained,' while they moved out the liquor. And God-" he ran a trembling hand back through his tousled hair, "I certainly was accommodating wasn't I? I even released your friend Dunbar, so he could help!"

"I didn't know," she whispered, seeking his burning eyes and feeling their fire deep in her heart. She moved toward him like a moth to a flame. "Pa was just so angry about me. And he hates the Tax so. Please-"

He watched her come, feeling the sway of her body, feeling the pull she exerted on the very center of his being. He watched her grasp his sleeve and felt that same hand closing around his aching heart.